


I Love You

by HalRose



Series: The Shakarian Project [12]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Falling In Love, Implied Sexual Content, Love, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, POV Garrus Vakarian, Pain, Shakarian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalRose/pseuds/HalRose
Summary: “Say It!” - Throughout Mass Effect, Garrus doesn’t say ‘I love you’ to Shepard until the Extended Cut DLC of ME3. But what if he wanted to say he loved her, before then?
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: The Shakarian Project [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876087
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for the past 4 days. I really hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think.

**Garrus**

There were rumours that Commander Shepard was in love with both Kaidan and Liara when I first met her.  
Shepard wanted to focus on the mission, so had Liara clear this up.  
There were even more rumours that she was in love with somebody else, but nobody could determine who.

I knew I was in love with her after what happened on Virmire. Wrex wouldn’t back down after he heard that Saren had found a cure to the Genophage and Captain Kirrahe wanted to destroy the cure.  
Thankfully Wrex saw reason and backed down after we cleared the whole mess up and he lived to see another day. The same could not be said for Kaidan.

Shepard had a choice: save Kaidan or Ashley, and she chose to save Ashley. Kaidan died… and Shepard… changed. I know it was a hard decision for her and I don’t blame her for Kaidan’s death – she could only save one. And she made her choice,  
Wrex knows that I like Shepard, but I never said anything. When we got back to the Normandy, Wrex approached me.

“Why don’t you say it? Just tell her you like her.” Wrex says, like there’s no problems whatsoever.

“It’s not as easy as that Wrex.” I tell him “For one, Turians are meant to hate Humans and vice versa, and I don’t want to ruin our friendship. I look up to her, I respect her.”  
“You’ll regret it. You’ll need to tell her sooner or later.”

Turns out, he was right in the end.

I quit C-Sec and left the Normandy, because my original mission I’d signed up for, was now over.

And then I got a call from my father a few week after I left...

“Garrus, I don’t know how to tell you this… but Shepard is dead.”

The world seemed to stop turning in that moment. I decided to become a Merc and things didn’t seem to go so well; to cut a long story short, I decided to piss off the other famous Merc groups like the Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack,  
Two years had passed and I was stuck on Omega, and Sidonis, a friend of mine... had betrayed me.  
All the Merc groups were out to get me, and I knew I was going to have to fight my way out. The odds weren’t great….

And then I saw her, in my scope.  
Shepard was alive, but how!?

I played it cool, but inside I’m trying to figure out how she is alive, and I let her explain herself.  
Cerberus, that’s how she’s alive.

She hadn’t changed one bit. Sure, Cerberus had brought her back, but it was for a reason – she was our only hope against the Collectors.  
I quickly joined the team, there was no way in hell I was not going with her and her team.  
I got shot in the face with a missile and they saved my life, and I overheard Shepard arguing with one of the Cerberus troops, whose name turned out to be Jacob Taylor.

“Jacob, you better tell me that you’ve done everything you can. He means a lot to me.” She says  
“I can see that Commander.” He responds, solemnly, before continuing “Commander. We've done what we could for Garrus, but he took a bad hit. The docs corrected with surgical procedures and some cybernetics. Best we can tell, he'll have full functionality, but... “

I take this as my cue to walk through the door. 

She’s standing there, tears in her eyes and both of us are happy to see each other,

“Say it!”my brain screams at me.

It’s now or never, time to tell her how I feel.

“It’s good to see you alive, Shepard.” I say.

She tells me she loves me, and I freeze as Jacob leaves.  
My mind goes back to our first mission two years ago, with all the rumours that she loved someone else, whilst loving Kaidan and Liara, half of which turned out to be false – she wasn’t in love with Kaidan or Liara….but then, who?

So I ask her.

She says she wanted to tell me, she says she’s loved me since Virmire… but she didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want to compromise our friendship.  
I tell her that I cared for her since Virmire… but I don’t use the word ‘loved’. I don’t know why,  
I feel that way about her, though I do not use the term ‘love’.

“I didn’t know you liked men with scars.” I say, like all the other problems have melted away.

Shepard says we need to talk when we get the chance, and that chance comes shortly before we hunt for Sidonis, when I finally have a lead on the bastard

“An eye for an eye” Shepard says

I shoot Sidonis dead.

We get talking after that and we talk about life, we catch up with each other. I bring up the fact that Humans and Turians aren’t supposed to get along and Shepard points out that didn’t stop us in our first adventure.  
And things kinda escalate from there.

The first time she properly tells me that she loves me, is shortly before the suicide mission.  
Both of us end up in her personal quarters, both of us scared that we may not make it out alive of what lays ahead.

Part of me wanted to say how I feel, tell her that I love her… but I didn’t say anything.  
She said she loved me. And yet I froze.  
I wanted to say it back, I did…. And yet I didn’t.

But she looks at me like she knows what I’m trying to say. I do ramble, I do try and tell her how I feel and she cups my face and tells me everything is going to be alright.  
And for that moment, just that one moment… it feels like everything is worth fighting for.

I love her, I would do anything for her and yet I’m such a coward, I can’t even say three simple words to her.

“Garrus, we’re walking into hell.” Shepard says

“So, nothing new then.” I reply calmly. “We’re gonna get through this, and then…”

Well, I do not know what happens next. What’s in store for us? If we survive, does she want me to stay? Does she want me to go?

“Where do we go from here, Shepard? Last time I left, you died.”

“It won’t happen again, Garrus. I have no plans of dying anytime soon.” She reassures me. “And I’ll be happy to have you… if you want to stay,” She whispers, as we lay in bed talking about the future.

“I want to stay, are you crazy? Joining you was the best decision I ever made.”

So we walk into hell, and somehow we all survive. Shortly afterwards, I’m called to Palaven, so I have to leave.  
Shepard promises she’ll come for me, and I know she will.

And then I hear she’s been arrested, and the world goes fucking crazy. The Reapers are here and we need to fight against them.  
I wait for Shepard, and she comes to Menae, which is Palaven’s moon and it’s where I’m helping out the fight against the Reapers.

She invites me back on the Normandy, and I join her quicker than she can even ask.

Something changed in me over the six months that Shepard was in custody – I guess you could say I became more confident. I know what I want, and I know what to do and I became a leader to my people, just like Shepard is to everyone.  
I know I want our relationship to work – fuck the Reapers; we’ll blast them out of the hell hole they crawled out of.  
After everything Shepard has done for the galaxy, she doesn’t get enough praise. They always want her to do more work.

Palaven… Palaven doesn’t feel like home any more. The Normandy is where I belong, it’s where Shepard belongs.. and I belong by her side.  
I know what love is.  
And I love Shepard, more than anything in this world and I don’t give a damn about what anyone says – I will fight until the very end, for our love; for the right to live our lives in peace.

Shepard still tests my reach and I test her flexibility.

And it’s real. We don’t care what others think of us. We can love who we want.

“I told you that I’d come for you.” Shepard says, 

“I waited for you to get out of custody.” I replied, taking her hand.

Yeah, well it turns out Jacob was the only one who didn’t wait. I won’t say what I think, but let’s jut leave it as ‘he could have handled it better’.

I have to deal with acting on behalf of Palaven and help the forces whenever I can. Dad and Solana make it off of Palaven which is great, but I don’t hear much else.

A lot of things happen.  
Thane is murdered by a cold-blooded bastard Kai Leng, sent by the Illusive Man to murder a councillor but Thane got in the way.  
We get to have some shore leave, and that’s when I decide to make my move.

All this time, we’ve been chasing a dream of what could be, if we win this war. I don’t want it to be a dream. I want to have some fun, blow off some steam and break a few rules all at the same time.  
We have our first date and then I take her out above the Presidium, telling her that we should do something stupid for the hell of it.

“I’d be lying if I said this view didn’t inspire a certain..mood.” I say.

“Something on your mind?” Shepard asks, and smiles. 

My heart skips a beat.

“It seemed like you needed time to… figure us out.” I say

When in actuality, this statement applied to the both of us. Both of us were so unsure of what could be our last moments together… both of us not knowing what the future held.

“Are you… ready to be a one-Turian kind of woman?” I ask her.

“The only thing that made leaving Earth bearable, was knowing that you were out there somewhere.” She replies.

“I felt the same way, The worst part of the galaxy going to hell would’ve been never getting to see you again.”

This is what love is. Love isn’t just about words; it’s about understanding one another, it’s about the pain and the heartache of being away from the one you love and doing whatever is possible to protect it, to fight for what you believe in.  
Love makes you unstoppable. Love is a battlefield.  
I know what love is, and it’s being by her side, even beyond death itself.

“I’m right where I want to be. I love you Garrus Vakarian.”

“I love you, Shepard. I always have and I always will.”

Enough talk of vids and research, and the rambling. She needed to hear me say it. Like I always wanted to say it.  
I pull her in for a kiss, almost sweeping her off her feet.

The next few hours pass in a blur and then eventually, we have to get back to work.  
All the while, I’m right by her side. Everybody knows about us at this point, there is literally no hiding it.  
We can deal with the press, we can deal with all when the war is over. We can start a life together, when this is all over.

We’re on the Normandy, getting ready to deal with London when we have a final proper chat before the chaos  
I tell her that if I die, or we both die, to meet each other at the bar in the next life. I order her to come back alive, because it will be an awfully empty galaxy without her.  
She looks me in the eyes, kisses me and says,

“If I’m up there in that bar and you’re not, I’ll be looking down. You’ll never be alone.”

I knew there and then, that I had to do something. I wasn’t letting her walk into hell all alone. 

“I’m not leaving you out there, Shepard…I will never do that to you” I say.

“You have to lead the others. For me. Please. Do it for me.” She begs

“Yes, Commander.” I say.

We enter London and we pass the checkpoints, and my whole body is screaming at me to just do anything crazy to get out of this situation.  
Shepard picks Tali and I to go with her towards the final beam… the final push.

A Reaper’s beam rips up the ground in front of us, sending a Mako flying. Shepard pulls away and I try to follow her – I’m fine, it’s just a few scratches and nothing more but she insists on calling for an evac,  
I turn to Liara, who is grabbing hold of me.

“Liara, let go.” I say.

“What are you doing, Garrus?” Liara asks.

I turn to face Shepard as the Normandy comes into view.

“Garrus, you can’t come with me. It has to be me that goes on, you’re hurt….” Shepard’s voice breaks.

“We’re a team, Shepard. We can make it, together. Just let me come with you.” I beg.

“You don’t know what could happen beyond the beam.” Shepard tries to argue as the Normandy opens up and James Vega and the others start helping Liara up the ramp, whilst firing at stuff in our way.

Liara reaches out to me.

“You don’t know what happens beyond the beam. You don’t have to do it alone anymore. We are a team…. And I love you, Athena Shepard.”

“I love you too Garrus Vakarian, and you’re a pain in my ass.” Shepard hesitates. “I need you to run, as fast as you can.”

It’s not something I’m good at, but I’ll do my best.

Shepard nods at Liara and Tali who has come down to see what is going on, and they watch as Shepard orders Joker to pull away.  
And even through my injury and Shepard’s own, we run for our lives towards the beam.

I’m there when Shepard activates the Crucible – she wants to destroy the Reapers for good.  
I take her hand; proud of everything she’s done.

“I love you…” I tell her, as everything goes black.

And then everything hurts, and I hear people calling our names. And both Shepard and I call out for help.  
I crawl my way through the wreckage towards the love of my life, and then everything goes black again…


End file.
